🔗 Share this article

It is merely in the past few seasons that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as professional cricket players. For generations, they faced ridicule, disapproval, exclusion – including the threat of physical harm – to pursue their passion. Currently, India is hosting a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's athletes could become national treasures if they achieve their maiden championship win.

It would, therefore, be a travesty if the upcoming discussion focused on their male counterparts. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are unavoidable. And not because the home side are highly favoured to win, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the initial incident, it occurred at the conclusion of the male team's group stage game between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India skipper, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad disappeared the field to evade the usual post-game post-match ritual. A couple of same-y follow-ups occurred in the knockout round and the championship game, culminating in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the title winners declined to receive the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic if it weren't so distressing.

Those following the women's World Cup might well have hoped for, and even imagined, a different approach on Sunday. Female athletics is supposed to offer a fresh model for the industry and an alternative to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her squad would have sent a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the mutually adverse environment they have overcome and provided a symbolic reminder that politics are fleeting compared with the connection of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan players welcomed as guests, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their country.

Rather, we've encountered the hard limits of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their homeland, idolized like deities, regarded like nobility. They possess all the privilege and power that comes with fame and wealth. If Yadav and his team are unable to defy the directives of an strong-handed prime minister, what chance do the female players have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup furore prompted much analysis of that specific sporting tradition, especially because it is viewed as the definitive symbol of fair play. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he said immediately after the first game.

The India captain considered the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to devote his team's win to the military personnel who had participated in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they will inspire us all," Yadav informed the post-game reporter, "and we give them more reasons on the ground whenever we get an opportunity to bring them joy."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a military assault in which dozens died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a solitary humanitarian message past the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was eventually penalized 30% of his match fee for the comments. He wasn't the sole individual sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "six-zero" signals to the crowd in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.

This is not a matter of not respecting your opponents – this is athletics appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a missing greeting when that's simply a minor plot development in the narrative of two nations already employing cricket as a political lever and weapon of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while holding dual roles as a state official and head of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian prime minister about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the war front.

The lesson from this episode is not about the sport, or India, or the Pakistani team, in separation. It's a warning that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is over, for the time being. The very game that was employed to build bridges between the nations 20 years ago is now being used to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're attempting, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Polarisation is affecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, athletics is always vulnerable: it's a type of entertainment that directly encourages you to pick a side. Many who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent will nonetheless support a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian competitor across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the athletic field is a protected environment that brings nations together, review the golf tournament highlights. The behavior of the New York crowds was the "perfect tribute" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes animosity against his opponents. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting values of equity and mutual respect, but the speed at which this might be accepted and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to represent that, at the conclusion of every competition, however bitter or heated, the participants are putting off their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their shared human bond. If the enmity isn't pretend – demanding that its players come out in vocal support of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? You might as well put on the military uniform immediately.